Idaho LUG Blog

We have been supporting many STEM/STEAM events in the area. Thank you for all your support for these events. The BSU Science and Technology Fair happened the Saturday after our meeting. We had tower building and bridge building for the attendees. We gave away several prizes for the tallest towers and best bridge.

Our next major event is Boise Hackfort from March 26th - 28th. We have been asked to display some Great Ball Machine (GBC) builds during the event. There is a signup on Signup Genius if you have the time to come and help out.

MOCFEST! planning is in full swing. We are planning for a bigger show this year. ABU Games is letting us use additional space allowing us to have a dedicated STEM room and a room for bigger builds. We plan on displaying Avatar, Isla Nublar and hopefully the National Mall in a separate room. We will have our June meeting at ABU Games so we can begin setting up the larger builds. 

Builder Tickets are now available for purchase. You can still display your MOCs for free, however, if you want to attend the builder dinner and participate in other builder activities you will need to purchase a ticket. You can get a discount by entering ILUGEARLY before check-out.

If you have an idea for this year's trophy please submit your ideas to Greg. We will need 20 trophies so we would like to keep the part cost to $10 or under.

Show and Tell

Half-Life hallway build	Powered-Up Train - Will	Optical Illusion - Thad
RC Big Rig	Rovers - Austin

Greg spent some time discussing different kinds of GBC modules. Part of the new activities we are adding to our meetings in 2025

Remember that we are showing off quilt squares at our March meeting. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Happy New Year! We had a great turnout for our first meeting in 2025, thanks to everyone who brought builds for show and tell.

As usual we will be helping out with many STEM events around the Treasure Valley. We will need people to help with these events go to SignUpGenius to volunteer. Here is a list of STEM events we have scheduled so far.

• 30 January - Horizon Elementary 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
• 6 February - Anser Charter 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
• 6 February - Hunter Elementary 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
• 20 February - Roosevelt Elementary 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
• 22 February - BSU Science and Technology Fair 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
• 10 April - Adams Elementary 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
• 11 April - Compass Charter 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Show and Tell

Zach - Jedi Starfighter and Droids	Jake - Crab Mech	Lori - Heart Artwork
Thad - Helmet	Emmanuel - Rock Monsters	Declan - Classic Minifigures
Connie - Modified Ice Festival	Daniel - Animaniacs	Austin - Applejack from My Little Pony
Gerd - disco rollercoaster and Santa's post office mashup	Luka - RC Car	Michael - Train Cars

Activities

In 2025 we are going to offer workshops, training and other activities as a part of our meetings. Greg spent some time discussing the various activities included with the STEM kits that we use at Elementary schools around the valley. Laura provided a workshop on creating low const lighting for LEGO displays using batteries and LEDs. Next month we are planning on doing an introduction to Great Ball Machine (GBC) modules.

We also gave out some non-LEGO baseplates for inspiration in making a simple MOC for a large LEGO Quilt that we will put together in March. If you picked up a baseplate we are looking forward to your creations. If you would like to participate in the project please contact Chris

Future Meetings

We have been meeting on the first Tuesday of the month at ABU Games for a LEGO game night. We are currently running a D&D campaign and many other LEGO board games are always available. If you would like to play some LEGO board games, bring your own games or just want to have more time to socialize with members of the LEGO community we would love to see you. Our next game night is scheduled for February 11th at 7PM.

Our next meeting will be the third Thursday in February (20th) 7PM at Bricks & Minifigs.

As usual we had a big turnout for our December meeting. Our gift exchange had 32 gifts and many great LEGO sets to open and steal. After the gift exchange we shared many wonderful treats that people brought to share.

We are still working on the calendar for next year which will be posted soon. Meetings will continue to be on the third Thursday of each month at Bricks & Minifigs.

Our first event of 2025 will be the BSU Engineering & Science Festival on Saturday February 22nd from 10AM - 3PM. We usually get some help from BSU students for the event but we will need several volunteers from the LUG as well. 

We will also be attending many STEM events at various elementary schools around the Treasure Valley. Last year we were at 10 different STEM nights. We will be conducting training at our January meeting on our STEM kits so everyone can help out. 

We will be adding some more content to our meetings in 2025. The plan is to have our regular meeting with announcements, show and tell and discussion of events and activites we attended. We will then provide a class or activity for anyone who wants to participate. Some of our ideas include GBC workshop, LEGO Motion workshop and using Stud.IO design studio. If you have any ideas on classes or activities you would like to attend or present please contact Chris, Shawn or Greg. 

Show and Tell

Daniel has been working on sculpting some custom minifigure heads for Star Trek The Next Generation and for the Animaniacs. 

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting on January 16th at 7PM.

We began setup for Festival of Trees on Monday November 25th. We had two large winter village builds one by Emannuel and another group village. We ran many different trains as well as Shawn's Santa's sleigh for almost the entire event. People really enjoyed seeing all of the builds and we got a lot of great comments from the many visitors.

During the event we had about 16 tables filled with various builds, three free build tables and a make and take build designed by Shawn. We sold 125 of the Idaho with Tree builds and were sold out by Friday afternoon. Declan was our top seller during the event.

We had over 40 volunteers who contributed over 400 hours during the event. Everyone helped with answering questions, helping with the make and take as well as the free build tables. There was a lot of troubleshooting of the various trains and other builds that included motion. We also went through lots of batteries.

Event Pictures

Our space viewed from behind the train table	Emmanuel's Winter Village	Castle and Loki's Library
Free Play Models
Idaho LUG Logo all Decorated	Tower by Shawn	Make and Take

This was a fantastic event, we talked to many families and promoted our group as well as MOCFEST! 2025. I have posted more pictures in the Member Event Gallery. All members can add photos to the gallery as well.

As an official LEGO User Group we get a support package from LEGO every year. Some of these sets are given out as prizes to the public at our various events. We also give some of these sets to our members based on their volunteer time. This is one of our biggest meetings of the year and it is a lot of fun.

Announcements

Festival of Trees is November 27th - December 1st, we will be loading in sets beginning on Monday November 25th. Anyone who has some winter/holiday themed MOCs that they want to display at the event are welcome. We are also providing LEGO free play and a Make-and-Take set for sale. All proceeds from the Make-and-Take go back to the Saint Lukes Foundation. Any members who want to volunteer to assist during the event are also welcome.

Bricks and Minifigs will have a brick sorting event on Tuesday December 3rd from 3PM - 7PM. You can earn some free bulk as well as discounts in the store.

Our annual Christmas Party will be on December 19th. Please bring your favorite treats to share. If you would like to participate in our Dirty Brickster gift exchange bring an official LEGO set valued at at least $20. We will provide all of the rules for the gift exchange during the meeting.

Show and Tell

Austin- 53 Buick Skylark	Austin - "Red Thunder" Helo
Logan - Winter Scene	Shawn - Rainbow Idaho

Looking forward to 2025

Once again a big Thank You to everyone that volunteered in 2024! We have many more opportunities to volunteer next year.

We have started a LEGO game night where we bring in LEGO board games to play. We will be starting a D&D campaign as well.

Have a safe and wonderful Holiday season and we look forward to seeing everyone at our December party.

Our October meeting featured many Halloween builds and attendees voted on their favorites. The top three builds are shown below. The rest of the builds are shown below.

Members Top Voted Halloween MOCs

Zach - A Star Wars Halloween	Ethan - Necromancer's Castle	Tim & Holly - Castle and Pumpkin Patch

Halloween MOCs

Ashley - Jack & Sally	Austin - My Little Pony Changling	Chris - Haunted Farm
Connie - Firehouse	Daniel - Custom Minifigs	Emmanuel - Graveyard
Luka - Remote Controlled Car	Luna - Portal II Scene	Meredith - Scary Tree
Shawn - Chainmail	Luna - Portal II Scene	Shawn - Monster Fighters Sets

Announcements

Several members brought builds out to Witches Night Out at the Village on Wednesday 16 October. It was a bit wet but there was a good crowd and it was a fun event. Looking forward to participating again next year.

Saint Lukes Festival Of Trees begins on 27 November 2025. We are looking for lots of holiday builds to display up in the kids area. We will be loading in on Monday November 25th. There are many opportunities to volunteer to help with our make-and-take, free build area as well as talking to visitors about the Idaho LUG and the builds. There is a SignUp Genius link on our facebook group as on the homepage for logged in members.

Our upcoming meetings will be very busy. November is our member appreciation night and final prep for Festival of Trees. December is our annual holiday party with a gift exchange and treats. To participate in the gift exchange bring an official LEGO product worth at least $15. All the rules will be covered before the gift exchange begins.

Still looking for feedback on our Game Night proposal. We would like to do an additional monthly meeting to play games if we get enough interest. Our initial plan is to have members bring games in like Chess or Ludo to share with others who would like to participate. If we get enough interest I would like to run an AD&D campaign based on the LEGO Dungeons & Dragons set.

Our next meeting will be at 7PM on November 21st at Bricks & Minifigs, looking forward to see you there.